Washington, D.C.–The Office of Public Witness applauds the Senate Agriculture Committee’s passage of the Improving Child Nutrition Integrity and Access Act of 2016. This bipartisan bill would reauthorize expired child nutrition programs.
The Improving Child Nutrition Integrity and Access Act of 2016 would streamline summer and after-school meal programs to make it easier to serve meals to kids year-round. The bill allows some states to provide summer EBT (electronic benefit transfer) cards to families in hard-to-reach areas to purchase groceries. It also allows some states to use alternative methods of reaching kids when they are unable to make it to meal sites.
Importantly, the bill does not make cuts to SNAP (formerly known as food stamps) or other anti-poverty programs to pay for these changes. One in five children in the U.S. lives at risk of hunger. For every six low-income children who receive a school lunch, only about half also get a school breakfast. Only one also gets a meal during the summer months.
Stay tuned for information about how to push your Senators to bring this important bill to the floor for a vote.
